vB Easy Archive - How do you compete with Cingular's 1-800 number pricing?

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How do you compete with Cingular's 1-800 number pricing?
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Posted by: Televangelist

I had my Seimens S65 for two years, was ready to upgrade.

Spent a while going through all the Cingular stores in my area, haggling, seeing what they could offer me in terms of free phones, if they could call up Cingular to get me added to the 'VIP' list (aka orange mailers) that gives reduced prices on phones. No luck. Waste of several hours of my time.

I call up Cingular via 611, 15 minutes on the phone and in exchange for re-upping for another 2 years, they send me a SonyEricsson S710A for free, arrives in 2 days or so. The best free phone they were offering me in-store didn't even have an effing camera on it.

As more and more people get wise to the fact that Cingular's 800 number is offering much better phone deals, how are the retail stores going to keep competing?

Posted by: MrAlifEkin

when i used to work in the store, i would send people to the online site or 800 number because i hated doing upgrades. For the hassle that most upgrades are, and the lack of going towards my quota, I wanted to avoid upgrades as much as possible. Yes it sounds bad, and that's why i don't work retail anymore. Commission and strict quotas get to you.

Posted by: Mazzel

as much as i hate upgrades, the only thing that can make them worthwhile is any feature attachments that may came out of them...in most cases during upgrades, i get "lucky" enough to review rate plans per customer request and end up finding out that text messaging is being occured by the children or even by the adult...

i don't have any problem sending people to the 800 number or customer service for the less expensive phones, because in most cases at least in my area, those who by the cheaper phones are the ones who are usually seniors who will ask every question under the sun about how to use it and then have to ask again after alzheimers sets in and need to write it down for them...i'll refer them all day to customer service...let some poor soul not worrying about his day to day bank account number have the fun of teaching them how to program their sons phone number...

listen i'm helpful to everyone who comes before me...and you critics can say whatever you want about the helpfulness of the cingular sales rep...i am ALWAYS willing to help out a customer with a question...but when it comes to making my goals, upgrades are time consuming and aggravating...god bless america

Posted by: Rcadden

I have to agree. While upgrades DO go towards my quota and bonuses, I barely make any money on them, I could buy about 1.5 gallons of gas for the price of an upgrade, so I usually don't bother with them. That being said, I will do them, after all, a phone sale is a phone sale. Usually, I can talk it up enough to get an add-a-line on there, which helps, but also I konw those people will come back to me and will send their friends over. I have had that many a time. But as far as pricing goes, I will admit to people that they may or may not be able to get a better deal by calling in. Most people think the only way to get a new phone via upgrade is at the main store, who's cheapest phone in my area is $40. So we usually don't have a problem with that.

Posted by: Televangelist

Are there two different departments, with the 800 number? One for regular upgrades, and another dealing with retention (I think it's called the 'save' team), customers who have been Cingular for a while but are considering switching, that is authorized to make better deals?

I ask because many of my friends were unable to duplicate my success at getting Cingular to upgrade them to an S710A for free. They didn't threaten to quit or anything; I did, and I showed them a counter-offer from Verizon that they then agreed to beat.

Is it always good strategy with the Cingular phone folks to threaten to quit whenever it's time to upgrade?

Posted by: brokendream78

I doubt you will find anyone able to get a S710a for free like you did. In my 2 years of experience selling Cingular, you got one of the best deals that I have come across.

Posted by: Televangelist

Quote:

Originally Posted by brokendream78

I doubt you will find anyone able to get a S710a for free like you did. In my 2 years of experience selling Cingular, you got one of the best deals that I have come across.

I still have the guy's rep number saved... do the on-phone reps get commission for people who upgrade? if so, would it thus be good of me to redirect my friends to him when they switch to cingular, as a way of thanks?

Posted by: brichmon1982

Its funny because today I had a lady come in to my store and she swore that should could call up CS and get the RAZR for free. The average price in this area is $199 and I was willing to budge a little ($10-$30). However, there is no way I could have come close to matching her offer, so I had to say sorry, can't do it. I told her to call up CS and get the deal then. Of coarse, her reply is that I don't care about her service and that T-Mobile would give her a free phone. You all know that type of customer. All I could do was roll my eyes.

It made me stop and wonder if CS would actually give her a free RAZR. Has anybody heard of CS doing that?

Posted by: suicidal2af

Quote:

Originally Posted by Televangelist

I had my Seimens S65 for two years, was ready to upgrade.

Spent a while going through all the Cingular stores in my area, haggling, seeing what they could offer me in terms of free phones, if they could call up Cingular to get me added to the 'VIP' list (aka orange mailers) that gives reduced prices on phones. No luck. Waste of several hours of my time.

I call up Cingular via 611, 15 minutes on the phone and in exchange for re-upping for another 2 years, they send me a SonyEricsson S710A for free, arrives in 2 days or so. The best free phone they were offering me in-store didn't even have an effing camera on it.

As more and more people get wise to the fact that Cingular's 800 number is offering much better phone deals, how are the retail stores going to keep competing?

hold customers at gunpoint

(just kidding)

Posted by: Televangelist

Quote:

Originally Posted by brichmon1982

Its funny because today I had a lady come in to my store and she swore that should could call up CS and get the RAZR for free. The average price in this area is $199 and I was willing to budge a little ($10-$30). However, there is no way I could have come close to matching her offer, so I had to say sorry, can't do it. I told her to call up CS and get the deal then. Of coarse, her reply is that I don't care about her service and that T-Mobile would give her a free phone. You all know that type of customer. All I could do was roll my eyes.

It made me stop and wonder if CS would actually give her a free RAZR. Has anybody heard of CS doing that?

I've heard one instance of that, but I'm betting it's rare -- it certainly wouldn't be standard offer. Then again, CS seems very succeptible to the type of people you mention.

But why bother haggling to get a free Razr? Amazon.com offers it for free with a 2 year contract, to my knowledge.

Posted by: elushon

Well what we always tell people who wanna get their phones online is that if you have any problems with the phone, or any questions about it's general use then good luck finding a rep patient enough to walk you through anything and everything. If they buy the phone from us we'll bend over backwards, explain how to use features on the phone, and so on.

We will help people who didn't buy the phones from us if it's like a 2 or 3 minute fix, but generally we refer peple back to where they got their phone for support. Generally when you tell people that, they're willing to pay a little (or a lot) more for the phone for the simple fact they have a face to sit down with them when they do have problems and help them out as much as they can.

Posted by: -X-

Couple months Cingular is putting a Minimum pricing strategy into effect. Cingular will have set prices that you can't sell it lower than that, which will eliminate stores having to compete with wirefly, amazon and other third party sites and dealers like best buy ect. Will it work? I hope so..

Posted by: Rcadden

Seriously? Where is the memo on that? I haven't seen anything on CSP or anything (not that I would, but just wondering). Is this a part of removing the indirect agents as well?

Posted by: Alfred_Neuman

i had a guy who works as an agent selling sprint/nextel in costco try to pull this with cs.

he ported his friends account to verizon and they claimed they were going to cut his service off and so and so.

so he called cs and cs agreed to waive ETF if they returned for service with a new number. guy then asked if he can get a free v3, cs said no, guy hung up on the cs rep.

he then had the guts to say take this to the BBB to his friends.

he tried to get me to switch, screw that. guys a moron.

Posted by: anubis9278

Quote:

Originally Posted by -X-

Couple months Cingular is putting a Minimum pricing strategy into effect. Cingular will have set prices that you can't sell it lower than that, which will eliminate stores having to compete with wirefly, amazon and other third party sites and dealers like best buy ect. Will it work? I hope so..

this will violate so many national and indirect account contracts its not funny. carrier suicide aint going to cut it. there is no way to control pricing. cingular stores charge more for the phone to help reduce fraud. that way someone that paid for the 6010 will feel real stupid if they tried to commit fraud.

how do you compete? build a person to person relation ship with your customer. explain the "benefit" of dealing with you. then turn on their arse when they go somewhere else and expect you to fix their problem.

Posted by: .7

I don’t compete with it at all. I sell my service, and if I know their going to go online with what I’m selling them, the conversation ends and I move on to the next customer. The one thing that I dont have a problem with lately is letting customer know that I am on commission, and if they insist on going to wirefly.com, or online for their service, I will politely tell them that they can continue their sale through their preferred channel and have a good day. It’s about salesmanship, but it’s an opportunities game as well. If it’s not happening, and you know their going online, cut bait and move on is my attitude.